‘New Homeland’: Barbara Kopple Docu Makes Refugee Crisis Personal

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-winning director Barbara Kopple has debuted the trailer for a new documentary in collaboration with NowThis. In New Homeland, five refugee boys from Syria and Iraq assimilate to new lives in Canada and attend summer camp to discover a different way of life.

The film offers an intimate look into the experiences of building a new home after fleeing the traumas of war. New Homeland will make its festival debut at DOCNYC on November 13th.

Every summer since 1914, Camp Pathfinder, a summer camp located on a small island in the wilderness of Canada’s Algonquin Park, invites a community of boys and young men from across Canada and the United States to spend a few weeks in the back country learning how to camp, hike, canoe and fish.

Two years ago, camp director Mike Sladden, enraged by the tragic images from the growing global refugee crisis, but inspired by Canada’s growing intake of asylum seekers, had an idea. What if he could find a way to bring a group of displaced boys from Syria and Iraq to spend the summer at Pathfinder? If the camp experience could have such a profound effect on boys who grow up in the concrete jungle, imagine what it would be like for these refugee boys.

The film was produced by NowThis in collaboration with Barbara Kopple’s Cabin Creek Creek Films. The documentary continues the NowThis move into long-form programming, following its first documentary that was just released, Virginia 12th and its series Through Our Eyes winning the Edward R Murrow Award this year.